First Look: My First Girlfriend Is a Gal

Premise

A group of friends are desperate to lose their virginity and decide to go after a “gal” due to their promiscuous reputations. Junichi draws the short (long? How does this metaphor work?) straw and is forced to ask one out, only to be shocked when she says “yes”.

Jel’s verdict: I Need A Shower

I thought this show would be bad but I didn’t think this bad. There is certainly a place in this world for good-natured, even creative shows about the awkwardness of being a horny teenager. This, however, is not one of them. Considering the first half of the episode features a gang of boys talking about how they want to force themselves on an innocent elementary school girl with massive breasts, I can’t say the series gets off to a great start. Yes, they are all supposed to be disgusting losers who are shunned by their classmates, but I can’t help but think the author expects the audience to be too complicit with their feelings.

There’s also some fairly strong sexual content for a TV anime featured in the later half of the episode, which to be honest I don’t think I had much of a problem with. Maybe it was the hilarious censorship methods, which at one point involve an actual hand dropping from the top of the screen to cover the naughty bits. I hope that stays in the bluray version. But that aside, I guess I can appreciate our main gal Yukana is always in the driver’s seat and it doesn’t feel nearly as exploitative as the previous scenes with Junichi’s childhood friend. I mean, letting your female characters keep their sexual agency is sort of a baseline requirement so I’m not giving them credit, just saying that aspect could have been much, much worse.

So if you consider the overall episode, the first half made me feel physically ill and the second half barely avoided making me want to stop watching anime forever. I think it’s safe to say My First Girlfriend Is a Gal is bad. If you just want sexy anime girls, surely there are better sources than this. Beyond that, there’s no reason to watch.